Prelude: The Portrait Artist and Part 1, The Frontiersman: Chpaters 1-8 Summary and Analysis

Ron Chernow is an award-winning author of five books. Chernow uses newly discovered and released papers belonging to Washington to write this novel.

The author imagines what it must have been like for Gilbert Stuart, the artist who created the portrait of Washington that is used on the one-dollar bill, to meet Washington and work with him. By this time Washington was president, but he continued to be a moody, elusive man.

Washington's father, Augustine, married Mary Johnson Bell after his first wife's death left him with three young children. Augustine and Mary went on to have five children of which George Washington was the eldest. The family moved a great deal in Washington's early life because his father owned multiple properties throughout...